I first met Helen
Schucman on Saturday night, November 25, 1972. We met at William Thetford's
apartment on the upper east side of New York City, and our meeting was
arranged by our mutual friend Father Michael. The three of them, along
with Bill's roommate Chip, had spent the afternoon at a healing service
of Kathryn Kuhlman, the famous faith-healer, and had been impressed, if
not worn out, by the intense sincerity of the service. I later learned
how unusual it was for Helen to agree to go out in the evening, especially
after a tiring day. Looking back on that meeting, I can see a certain inevitability
in the circumstances leading up to it.

Brought
up in a Jewish home and educated for the first eight grades in a Hebrew
parochial school called a Yeshivah, I had left God and Judaism behind at
the age of thirteen, determined never to think of religious issues again.
There followed a long period of agnosticism that was coupled with a growing
and passionate love for classical music, with Beethoven and Mozart heading
my personal pantheon of guides that led me ever more deeply to internal
experiences that I, in my ignorance during that period, scarcely would
have termed spiritual. This period included my graduate education, and
very .surprisingly, a doctoral dissertation on St. Teresa of Avila, the
famous sixteenth century Spanish mystic. A couple of years later (1970),
after the break-up of my first marriage, God "showed up," and I began to
feel a personal Presence that was behind these non-spiritual" experiences.
Two years later, after a chain of experiences irrelevant to this book,
I found myself visiting a Trappist monastery, the Abbey of Gethsemani in
Kentucky, very unexpectedly feeling totally "at home."

The pace of my
life now seemed to quicken markedly. I decided while at the monastery that
it was God's Will that I become a Trappist monk, as well as a Roman Catholic,
though I had no interest in the Church whatsoever, nor any conscious interest
in Jesus, its central figure. Upon my return to the hospital where I was
employed, I spoke to the Catholic chaplain who baptized and confirmed me
within three weeks. In preparation for entering the monastery -- Church
law decreed I had to wait a year -- I decided to leave my job at Thanksgiving
and spend the time quietly alone. I felt I should spend part of this time
in Israel, and so arranged to go a few days after the holiday. But I am
slightly ahead of the story.

Shortly after
my baptism in September 1972, the chaplain told me that a priest in his
religious order was very anxious to meet me. This was my introduction to
Father Michael. The circumstances were far more interesting than
this, however. Father Michael was a psychologist, and had done part of
his graduate training under William Thetford and Helen Schucman at the
Psychiatric Institute, part of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.
The three of them became good friends, and in fact, Michael was one of
the very, very few people with whom Helen and Bill shared A Course in
Miracles, even as it was still coming through.

One day Bill was
reading John White's The Highest State of Consciousness, an anthology
in which an article of mine appeared. This was "Mysticism and Schizophrenia,"
a paper that was originally meant for my dissertation, and was first published
in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. The article compared
and contrasted the mystical experiences of St. Teresa with those of a schizophrenic,
the principal point being that schizophrenics were not mystics, and mystics
were not schizophrenics. Bill showed it to Michael as an example
of a psychologist who took the mystical experience seriously, more of a
rare occurrence in the mid-1960s than it is today. When the baptizing chaplain
mentioned to Michael that he had recently baptized a psychologist (a phenomenon
I think he equated with the imminent announcement of the Second Coming
), Michael recognized my name from the article and expressed interest in
meeting me.

I called him,
set up a time to get together, and he and I soon became fast friends. Shortly
before I was to leave for Israel, Michael told me about two psychologists
he thought I should meet. And so Michael, Helen, Bill, Chip, and I met
that Saturday evening. Most of the time, as I recall, was spent in my telling
how I came to be where I now was in my life. Helen shared a couple of her
early experiences, and I remember feeling a particularly close connection
with her.

At one point in
the evening, someone -- I think it might have been Michael -- mentioned
this "book" that Helen had "written," which had to do with spiritual development.
Bill pointed to a corner in his living room where his copy of the manuscript
of the Course was kept in seven black thesis binders. For some reason
I did not feel I should look at them, although it would have been perfectly
all right with Helen and Bill if I had done so.

The evening ended
and I felt that I had just met two very holy people, although I obviously
could not have recognized then the real importance they would have in my
life. Michael and I drove Helen home to her downtown Manhattan apartment,
and Helen mentioned that the name "Wapnick" was familiar to her, as indeed
"Schucman" was to me. We then realized that Helen knew my ex-wife Ruth,
who had worked for a while at the Medical Center as a research assistant.
I recalled that Ruth had found her immediate supervisor to be quite difficult,
and had spoken to Helen, a consultant to the project. Ruth had experienced
Helen as very supportive and helpful, as she did Bill. Interestingly enough,
this association was within the first year or so of the Course's transmission.

After we dropped
Helen off, Michael and I continued to his residence where I spent the night.
Before we went to sleep, Michael offered me a copy of "Helen's book" to
examine, but again, I did not feel I should look at it. I then went to
bed and yet could not fall asleep, a very unusual occurrence for me. Though
tired, I tossed and turned for quite some time, trying to figure out why
I was having so much difficulty.

Finally I remembered
a dream I had had over a year before. In the dream I was with a group of
people, who I felt were considerably younger than I. A very wise
middle-aged lawyer then walked in, and took me to a different section of
the room, which resembled a library, apart from the others. She then presented
me with me three questions, only the first of which is relevant here. It
asked what I would change, if I could, of any of my childhood experiences.
My answer, which proved to be the correct one, was that I would not change
anything, since all was the way it should be and the past no longer mattered.
I awoke at this point, and then finished the dream in a semiconscious,
hypnagogic state. In the dream (which I recognized to be a significant
one), the woman-lawyer was a kind of spiritual teacher, for whom I had
a great deal of respect, and whose respect and approval I had obviously
gained as well.

Lying in bed at
Father Michael's, I suddenly realized that the lawyer was Helen. I barely
knew her, but at this point already recognized in Helen the powerful presence
of a spiritual authority. Obviously, however, I had no way of knowing then
just how complex an individual she was. I became quite peaceful, and instantly
fell asleep. When I told Michael about it the following morning, he laughed:
"Of course Helen would be a lawyer," referring to Helen's keen analytic
and logically probing mind.

I left for Israel
a few days later, and as it ended up, most of my time was spent in two
monasteries. I wrote Helen and Bill separate letters in March, from the
Trappist Abbey of Latroun, outside Jerusalem. My letter to Bill survives,
but this first letter to Helen is missing. In it, Helen remarked to me
later, I referred to my desire to read her book, and spelled it with a
capital "B," something I never would have consciously done.

Moreover, while
in Israel I had two dreams relating to "Helen's Book." In the first, I
was standing on a New York City subway platform. I walked over to a garbage
can and there on top was what I knew to be a very holy book, but not one
with which I was acquainted. In another dream, I was walking along a beach,
and found this same holy book in the sand.

I eventually left
Latroun and went to Lavra Netofa, a small and physically primitive monastic
community atop a mountain in the region of Galilee, affording a beautiful
view of the northern end of the famous Sea. After two months, and feeling
very much at home there, I decided to remain on this mountain top for an
indefinite period of time. But before nestling in, I thought I should visit
the United States to see my family, as well as to look up Helen and Bill.
In my letter to Helen announcing my visit, I wrote:

Since
I shall be remaining here quite some time, I have decided to come to the
United States for about a month before returning here and settling in.
I plan to arrive somewhere around the week-end of May 12 [19731 ... and
I hope we can get together soon thereafter. I also look forward very much
to reading your book [here spelled with a lower case "b"]² while in
the States.

I stayed with Michael
on my arrival in New York, and shortly afterwards he drove me down to Columbia-Presbyterian.
Helen's recollection was that I walked into the door and said, "Hello,
here I am; where's the book?" While I know I was anxious to see this material,
I doubt if I would have totally forgotten my good manners. I would have
at least said, "Hello, how are you?" And then, "Where's the book?"
But obviously I could not wait to see "Helen's" manuscript.

Helen and Bill
had adjacent offices within a larger enclosed area, and they sat me down
in Bill's office while he went into Helen's. Helen handed me her two favorite
sections -- "For They Have Come" and "Choose Once Again" -- which thus
became my introduction to
A Course in Miracles. I read eagerly,
and could scarcely believe what I was reading. Long a lover of Shakespeare,
these extremely poetic sections were to me every bit as beautiful as anything
the Bard had written, and yet I remember exclaiming to Helen and Bill that
unlike Shakespeare, these words contained a profound spiritual message.
I could not envision a more sublime integration of form and content, equaling
in my mind the perfection of Beethoven's C-Sharp Minor Quartet.

My memory of the
exact sequence of events is hazy, but as I began reading the text from
the beginning I quickly recognized the Course as being the most perfect
blend of psychology and spirituality that I had ever seen. And I am sure
that it did not take me very long to realize that A Course in Miracles
was my life's work, Helen and Bill were my spiritual family, and that I
was not to become a monk but to remain in New York with them instead.

During this period,
which seemed to have a life of its own, extending itself from the original
four-week visit to ten, I was dividing most of my time between being with
Helen and Bill -- together and individually -- and my parents. The latter
understandably felt considerable discomfort and concern for their "nice
Jewish son" who had joined the "enemy camp," and who they felt, moreover,
had been abducted by a group of very suspect monks. I also traveled around
seeing many friends, including a trip to the Abbey of Gethsemani.

I thus spent a
great deal of time with my "new family," going over the entire course of
my life, sometimes in great detail. Helen and Bill seemed happy to listen,
and it was obviously important for me to share with them who I was, at
least who I thought I was. In addition, Helen and I began spending a lot
of time together, and it was clear that a real bond had been discovered
between us. I also spent time alone with Bill, and felt a closeness with
him as well. All in all, I was somewhat surprised by Helen's and Bill's
openness to share with me their difficulties with the Course, and the general
unhappy state of their lives, not to mention with each other.

Thus the honeymoon
period for me did not last very long, as the other aspect of Helen's and
Bill's lives also became -- painfully at first -- quite clear. Helen and
Bill were far more complex people than they had originally appeared to
be. My initial reactions to them were certainly not inaccurate, simply
incomplete. The love I felt for Helen and Bill, their dedication to God
and A Course in Miracles that I recognized from the beginning, never
diminished in my mind. But another dimension in them slowly began to dawn
on my awareness, that for a while I attempted to stifle. Here were two
kind and wise people, clinical psychologists no less, with whom I was able
to speak openly of my relationship with God and Jesus, and find total understanding.
Moreover, they were, after all, the two persons responsible for this remarkable
book that I was beginning to see was the center point of my life: the culmination
of my past journey, and foundation for the rest of my time here.

But I could also
see the enormous difficulty both of them experienced living in the world,
seeming appearances and professional accomplishments to the contrary. And,
above all, I could see the mess their interpersonal relationship was in.
In short, the situation was hardly the spiritual Camelot I thought I had
wandered into. Rather it was, I was beginning to recognize, a complex hotbed
of pain and hatred, paradoxically coupled with Helen's and Bill's genuine
dedication to God and the Course, not to mention a love and concern for
each other.

This paradox in
their relationship, to which I shall return in later chapters, was also
reflective of the aforementioned paradox within Helen herself: a phenomenon
exhibited in her dissociation of two almost entirely separate selves, what
A
Course in Miracles terms the right and wrong minds, representing God
and the ego. This paradox, once again, is the central theme in this book,
which itself has three parts. Part I details this conflict within Helen
-- "Heaven and Helen" -- as it was manifest in her early years. It is based
principally upon Helen's autobiography, which I present in as corrected
a form as I felt the license to do, interspersed with my own comments.³

Part II largely
describes Helen's meeting Bill and taking down A Course in Miracles,
and I draw heavily here upon the personal material given to Helen during
the early weeks of the Course's scribing. In addition, I cite relevant
excerpts from Helen's dreams, as well as from letters Helen wrote to Bill,
and notes from Bill's journal.

In Part III I
return to the period of my association with Helen and Bill, which basically
began in 1973, specifically calling upon my personal reminiscences of Helen
to discuss her two sides, and the ultimate resolution of this conflict.
Once this duality was transcended, only the unity of her one Self remained.
Thus Parts I and II span Helen's childhood years to the fall of 1972 when
she completed taking down the Course. Part III of the book covers the final
period of her life, 1973-1981, when I was so intimately connected with
her.

___________________________________________________2.
Throughout the book, my additions to quoted material are indicated by brackets
[ ], as opposed to parentheses which will always be from the quoted
material itself.3.
Helen and Bill had "appointed" me archivist of all the material related
to A
Course in Miracles, including Helen's original notebooks and all subsequent
typings of the Course manuscript. This material has been copyrighted by
me under the title "The Unpublished Writings of Helen Schucman, Volumes
1-22." These writings also include Helen's above-mentioned autobiography,
correspondence between Helen and Bill, and Helen and me, Helen's dreams,
undergraduate and graduate school term papers, etc. I quote extensively
from these writings in the chapters to follow.

Absence
from Felicityis
copyrighted 1991 by the Foundation
for A Course in Miracles, Temecula, CA. This
material is reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr. Wapnick
and the Foundation.